TidBITS#181/21-Jun-93
=====================
Read on for news of Apple's troubles and John Sculley's partial
resignation, followed by Bill Dickson's look at Xtras for System
7, an interesting attempt at avoiding standard software
distribution methods. Jeff Needleman illuminates a subject we've
never understood up to now, sharing SCSI devices between Macs
and PCs, and finally, a look at why those PowerBook 170 screens
break when you swear you weren't playing Postal Worker Volleyball
with it in the back room.
Copyright 1990-1993 Adam & Tonya Engst. Non-profit, non-commercial
publications may reprint articles if full credit is given. Other
publications please contact us. We do not guarantee the accuracy
of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and company
names may be registered trademarks of their companies. Disk
subscriptions and back issues are available - email for details.
For information send email to info@tidbits.com or ace@tidbits.com
CIS: 72511,306 -- AppleLink: ace@tidbits.com@internet#
AOL: Adam Engst -- Delphi: Adam_Engst -- BIX: TidBITS
TidBITS -- 1106 North 31st Street -- Renton, WA 98056 USA
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/21-Jun-93
Sculley Steps Down
Xtras for System 7
SCSI Double Agents
PowerBook 170 Screams, er, Screens
Reviews/21-Jun-93
[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-181.etx; 29K]
MailBITS/21-Jun-93
------------------
Often you can read the future in our error messages. Apple's OCE
(Open Collaboration Environment) is here, at least somewhere, as
evidenced by this mail bounce I received. I hope to see it for the
rest of us soon, and in the meantime, I'd be happy to see my mail
go through.
> From: "Mail Delivery Subsystem"
> Subject: Returned Mail
>
> -------------- Special condition follows --------------
> Unknown AOCE recipient(s):
**Claris bugged by Internet?** -- Ever-vigilant Craig O'Donnell
uncovered an obscure bug in several Claris applications that will
most likely only bite users of the nets. It seems that ClarisWorks
1.0 and 2.0 and MacWrite Pro 1.0 both fail to correctly print
space-delimited tables (like all the ones we put in TidBITS) in
monospaced fonts (like Courier and Monaco, which should print
aligned) to (at least) the StyleWriter II and to the LaserWriter
Select 300. Claris confirmed the problem with the unaligned tables
and recommended printing to a LaserWriter, presumably one with
PostScript. What a helpful suggestion! (We heard later the
unfortunate tech support therapist who made that suggestion was
put on a bread and water diet and forced to answer calls about
MacPaint 1.0 from users with 128K Macs.) Claris -- 800/3CLARIS --
408/727-8227 -- claris@aol.com
**Symantec** recently shipped Symantec C++ 6.0, supposedly the
first native C++ compiler on the Macintosh, along with THINK C 6.0
and Symantec C++ 6.0 for MPW. THINK C 5.0 users can upgrade to
either just THINK C 6.0 for $89.95 or to Symantec C++ 6.0, which
_includes_ THINK C 6.0, for $149.95. Symantec -- 800/441-7234 --
408/252-357
Sculley Steps Down
------------------
After 10 years of running Apple, John Sculley has announced that
Michael Spindler, currently the company's president and COO (Chief
Operating Officer), will replace him as CEO (Chief Executive
Officer). Sculley will remain chairman of Apple, a role which will
allow him to satisfy his need to bomb around the world hobnobbing
with other truly rich people in charge of companies, instead of
doing the daily grind as CEO. Rough life, eh? Do you think he'll
get a pay raise?
Sculley denied that Apple's recent misfortunes are related to his
resignation, but you have to wonder, especially coming from the
man who proposed that IBM purchase Apple when talking to an IBM
search committee looking for a new CEO for the big blue behemoth.
Apple recently lost the suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-
Packard, and although an appeal is almost certainly in the works
(hey, lawyers have to eat too, even if only caviar and quail
eggs), it looks bad for the home team, so to speak. In addition,
Apple just announced that its second-half earnings will fall short
of expectations (whose expectations isn't quite clear), and as a
result Apple stock took a major nosedive (if I had any money, I'd
buy now, but then again, if I were a whiz at stocks, I could
afford lawyer food on a more regular basis). And like a fairy
tale, trouble comes in threes, with the rumors of Apple laying off
about 1,000 employees.
Of course, this dire news stems from the very issues that Apple's
loyal users have clamored about for years. We want more Macs
(well, maybe not any more - it's too confusing) and we want cheap
Macs, but that results in Apple's margins, once thoroughly plump,
slimming down to normal industry levels. The basic problem is that
you can't have your cheap Mac and lust after an innovative Mac at
the same time. Other industry companies aren't pushing the
envelope nearly as hard, and that allows them to subsist on lower
margins.
I almost wonder if it wouldn't make sense for Apple to create
another spin-off company that would be lean and mean (and do no
R&D on its own) to compete with the PC-clone vendors. Perhaps such
a split would give Apple the two faces necessary to fight it out
on the low end while pumping out the expensive technological
innovations on the high end. The Performas seemed aimed at filling
that niche originally, but until recently few real Macintosh users
have paid much attention to the relabeled machines (the Performa
450, in particular, has competed strongly against the LC III
recently, in part because of stocking problems for the LC III).
Besides, it's so sad to go into Sears and when the Performa
salesthing comes over and says, "Can I help you?" be forced to
look at them pityingly and say, "No, I really don't think so."
Of course, Apple is undoubtedly aware of these problems. Rumors
abound of meetings with Dell (the third largest PC clone vendor),
and Apple is talking more about Companion, the set of cross
platform technologies jocularly referred to as "Macintosh on
Everything." You'll be able to run the Finder on top of Novell's
DR DOS, and you'll be able to run Macintosh applications on top of
various common flavors of Unix, just as you can run Macintosh
applications on top of A/UX. Don't worry, it will be thoroughly
confusing when it all arrives.
In the meantime, Apple employees will feel the axe along with
Apple prices, so watch those price lists carefully. With the slow
sales of the PowerBooks, the Duos in particular, you may be able
to pick up a four pound bundle of Macintosh joy for a song. If
you're an Apple employee, you already know this, but just to make
the rest of the world jealous, Apple employees can buy up to four
Duo 210s for $999 (notice the three nines? Remember the fairy
tale?). If you happen to know an Apple employee, you might want to
be nice that person since apparently resales are not being
discouraged, and $999 for a 4/80 Duo 210 is the sweetest deal
since the PowerBook 100s hit Price Club.
Information from:
Pythaeus
Xtras for System 7
------------------
by Bill Dickson -- wrd@beer.wa.com
[Editor's note: This is the first in an informal series of
articles exploring different methods of software distribution.
It's clear, I think, that the current commercial channels prevent
much good software from coming to market, and even when a program
does make it, often the programmer(s) reap few rewards in
comparison to the distributors and resellers in the middle, each
with a markup and a profit margin. I don't know that we'll solve
the problems with these articles, but we hope to start some people
thinking about the issues. -Adam]
Xtras for System 7 is a curious package. A collection of thirteen
extensions, Control Panels, and applications by various
programmers, it resembles a set of shareware utilities in many
ways, but it is sold in a commercial fashion with a manual by
longtime Macintosh author Sharon Zardetto Aker.
As with most everything, there are parts of Xtras that I like a
lot, parts I don't like much, parts I am indifferent to, and parts
that intrigue me. We can get most of that out of the way with a
simple rundown of the software, so why don't we? In the same order
as it's listed on the back:
1) Xtras Menu: An extension that slaps an Xtras menu into your
Finder. The menu provides access to Accordion, below, as well as
configuration settings for most of the other features. Personally,
I'm not fond of things that put menus in my Finder. Sometimes it
makes sense, but I'm not sure it does in this case. Yes, it allows
access to all the Xtras features, but, apart from the fact that
they all came from the Xtras disk, only a few have anything in
common with the others. Does it make more sense to access
Publishist, a scrapbook-like utility, from the Xtras menu because
it came with the Xtras disk, or to access it from the same place
you would access your normal scrapbook, because they're both
scrapbooks? And it's not as though all the Xtras menu items work
on selections in the Finder, as do the menus in things like
DiskDoubler and StuffIt's Magic Menu.
2) Accordion: A set of menu commands in the Xtras menu for
collapsing and expanding some or all levels of folders in text
views. If this is the sort of thing you do a lot (I don't), you
might find it handy.
3) The Big Apple: The coolest item. You've seen something like it
before, probably; it gives you a hierarchical Apple menu and
allows you to re-order the items in the menu in any way you like,
even adding little lines to separate sections as they make the
most sense to you. It's been done before, and I can't think of any
reason why this implementation is any better or worse than any
other. I happen to like it a lot.
4) Publishist: Essentially a scrapbook that allows you to publish
its contents for subscription by other documents.
5) Icon Editor: What it says. A good one.
6) IntoApple: A drag & drop utility to create an alias in your
Apple menu. You can also configure IntoApple to allow you to
select a location if you'd rather do things that way.
7) EmptyTrash: When installed, it automatically empties your trash
when you start your machine. If only it worked on my kitchen.
8) Incinerate: For those with great faith in themselves, this
antisocial little critter instantly deletes anything dragged onto
it. Definitely of the "shoot first, ask questions later" school of
thought.
9) Shred*It: For the paranoid, er, security-conscious, this
program totally annihilates files so that you can't get them back,
ever, no matter what. There will be no questions later if you use
Shred*It.
10) Compost: The ecologically-conscious version of Incinerate.
Leave stuff in the trash can and forget about it. After a set
amount of time, it'll decay and disappear, returning useful disk
space instead of rich soil.
11) LabelMaker: Allows you to apply a label to a file right from
Save dialogs.
12) PopApp: Hold down a modifier key or four (you choose) and
click anywhere on your screen, and your application menu - you
know, the one in the upper right hand corner - pops up right under
your mouse, wherever it may be. I never felt that my 14" monitor
was dinky, but the thought that somebody needs this extension gave
me a brief case of screen envy.
13) SpeedName: If you get bored waiting for the Finder to allow
you to rename your files, this Control Panel will allow you to
adjust the delay.
That covers it. Overall, these utilities are great, if you like
that sort of thing. They all seem to do what they're supposed to,
and they do it reasonably well. The question is whether you need
(or want, for you hedonists out there) to do what they do. Do you
want to clutter your desktop with icons to modify the way your
trash works? I don't, but then I have a dinky little 14" monitor.
Do you use Finder labels frequently enough to justify LabelMaker?
I don't at home, but I've found myself wanting it at work
sometimes.
Pretty much everybody can probably find at least one, and quite
possibly several utilities in this package that they will use, if
they haven't already found a freeware or shareware solution for
the same problem. And at a shareware-like price of $25, if you
find two items you use, or one you love, you're doing well. If you
find three, consider yourself ahead of the game.
There is one exceptional thing about this package - the
distribution method. It is distributed as a paperback book with a
disk inside, and in response to my inquiry, Sharon told me that it
was being sold through book outlets, not software outlets.
There are some advantages to this distribution method. The manual
is... well, there's a manual, something that can't be said about
most shareware. And it's a good one, written by a veteran of the
Macintosh documentation business. It's unlikely you'll need to
read more than 25 percent of the book, but if you ever do have a
question about one of the items, the answer is almost certainly
there.
I also like the lack of the dreaded Shareware Guilt Factor. I'm
sure you've done it. You stare at a utility, and suddenly find
yourself wondering, "did I ever pay for that?" Maybe you keep
records about such things, but if you're like me, they probably
are hiding somewhere in the kitchen or were washed in the laundry.
(The records, not the shareware.) Eventually you relegate the
program to a corner of your hard disk, unwilling to delete it
because maybe you paid for it, but afraid to use it in case the
author will crawl under your bed at night and whisper horrible
stories about starving programmers slaving over their keyboards in
unheated garrets. Guilt city.
The optimal solution to this dilemma, of course, is to pay for
your shareware and then remember that you did so. But if you're a
total dunderhead, like me, you might feel more comfortable
shelling out your $25 in advance and hoping that what you wind up
with is worth it. In the case of Xtras for System 7, I think it's
a safe investment for most people. The Big Apple alone is worth
the price for me.
This distribution method has problems as well. The book can be
almost impossible to find. It's not large, and it's crammed in
with a huge pile of other brightly-colored books. Maybe it will
help if I tell you the spine is purple with white lettering. I
hope so, because I'd be willing to bet that if you walked up to a
B. Dalton clerk and asked for something called Xtras for System 7,
he or she would stare blankly at you. This also means few people
will find it while browsing. If you find it, it's because you were
looking, and that doesn't bode well for sales. I wouldn't be
surprised if Xtras for System 7 (IBN# (not ISBN#, oddly): 0-201-
60853-7) takes a different marketing tack soon. It will have to in
order to survive.
Sharon Aker calls it "bookware." You won't get any phone support
or fancy one-button installer, but it's a decent piece of work. It
should be easy enough to figure out whether anything in the
package is useful to you or not, and if it is, the price is right
at $24.95.
(Disclaimer: The author does not mean to disparage B. Dalton
clerks, dinky 14" monitors, or dunderheads, or to indicate that
the three might in any way be related. He does, however, mean to
disparage, in the strongest possible terms, people who don't pay
for the shareware they use regularly. He's not going to tell you
what he calls them, because he gets spitting mad just thinking
about it. In fact, he's going to go lie down now.)
Addison-Wesley Publishing -- 617/944-3700
SCSI Double Agents
------------------
by Jeff Needleman -- needje@msen.com
If you use both Macs and IBM clones, you've probably wondered if
you could buy a tape drive or CD-ROM drive or a removable
cartridge drive or WORM drive or whatever that could be used both
for your Macs and for your IBMs. I'm not talking about elaborate
networking with servers and high-speed network communications. I'm
talking sneaker-net, down and dirty: plug in the tape drive to
your Mac and update one backup tape, then plug it into your IBM
and update another backup tape. That's a simple, economical
approach for many of us and, if possible, would let us justify the
purchase of nice new toys on the grounds that a single device
could do double duty for a number of machines on both platforms.
Macs from the Plus up have SCSI ports, so when this possibility
occurred to me two years ago I started looking at SCSI cards and
devices for the IBM. I found some real problems. The old SCSI-1
standard (there is a faster, smarter, family-size SCSI-2 standard
now) wasn't much of a standard - there were a whole bunch of
supposed "SCSI compatible devices" that weren't compatible with
much of anything other than the manufacturer's own supplied SCSI
adapter. But, you should be able to put up to six other devices on
one SCSI card (the SCSI card itself takes one of the SCSI ID
numbers from the usual seven, leaving six available for devices).
If the cards and devices were not interchangeable, what could be
done in a practical way?
Well, one approach was to buy the cards and devices from the same
manufacturer. But that wasn't easy. Dealers packaged everything
for one platform or the other. If you wanted to use a NEC CD-ROM
drive on a Mac, you bought the drive with a Mac interface. If you
wanted it on an IBM clone, you bought the version with the IBM
interface (including the card). If you wanted to buy the Mac
version and then add the IBM card and software without the actual
drive, good luck! No one sold it that way - nor would you want to
fill your slots and empty your pocketbook buying different cards
for each peripheral you added. But you had no assurance of
anything working right if you mixed cards and devices from
different manufacturers. What to do?
What I did was wait for some standards to be established, since
it's best to use a common language that all devices can
understand. Now that enough time has passed we have some standards
in this area. I know about three such languages: Microsoft's
Layered Device Driver Architecture (LADDR, which stretches the
acronym), the Common Access Method (CAM), and the Advanced SCSI
Programming Interface (ASPI). The arguments among these proponents
are now settling, and my own bet is on ASPI, mostly because many
vendors support it (it was created by Adaptec, which makes popular
SCSI controllers) and because one software product on the market,
CorelSCSI, is widely distributed and works only with ASPI drivers.
So here are my recommendations on how to buy Mac peripherals that
will work with an IBM too. First, don't buy anything old or used;
stick to devices marketed since at least 1989. Second, check to
see that your device is supported by the CorelSCSI drivers. Corel
maintains a forum on CompuServe (GO COREL) and has a list of
supported devices and controller cards available for downloading.
You are concerned only with the internal mechanism. Many
manufacturers sell Quantum hard drives, for example, packaged
under hundreds of different names, but all recent Quantum drives
are supported, regardless of the name on the external case.
Third, buy a SCSI Host Adapter card with ASPI drivers (usually
priced between $125 and $200 for the latest SCSI-2 16-bit models);
again, tested ones are on the Corel list. Many of these adapters
will come with drivers for most of the devices you come across,
and you will not need the drivers in CorelSCSI itself. In that
case, you need not purchase CorelSCSI. But if you try to hook up a
device and have problems, you might opt for CorelSCSI (which is
sold with and without the controller card itself) for around $80
from the usual mail-order places.
Finally, buy the Mac version of the product so that you'll be sure
to get the software needed to run it on your Mac. I recently
bought a Teac backup tape drive from Club Mac, although I could
have gotten the basic external drive more cheaply from an IBM-only
supplier. By buying from Club Mac, I received Retrospect as well,
which would normally cost about $150 and without which I would
have no way to back up from my Mac.
If all goes well, you should be able to just plug in your devices
and use them. I've done that with a tape drive, CD-ROM drive, and
an old SyQuest 44 MB cartridge drive. I've had two minor problems.
The installation software for the card I use recognized the
SyQuest drive easily but apparently regarded it as the newer 90 MB
drive and reported that it couldn't read the media after
formatting. I had to format cartridges using SyQuest's own
software before the SCSI card could recognize them correctly
(download DRIVER.ZIP from the SyQuest BBS at 510/656-0473). It
turns out that CorelSCSI can install this drive through a custom
installation in which you first identify the card as a Ricoh 50
removable and then make some changes in your CONFIG.SYS file. The
details are in a file on the Corel section on CompuServe. The
other problem? I couldn't reinitialize a 1985 SuperMac DataFrame
XP20 for DOS - the ROM in the DataFrame responded to a standard
SCSI query about its capacity with a "0" and, recognizing that as
an error and not knowing the true capacity of the device,
CorelSCSI wouldn't mount it. On the Mac, SCSI Probe had similar
problems getting info from the device, by the way. (Hence my first
rule above about sticking to new equipment.)
[Actually, it's not in the least bit surprising that a DataFrame
XP20 caused problems - those drives are notorious for causing
problems even with third party formatting software when used on
the Macintosh. -Adam]
Information from:
Windows User -- Feb-93, "Taming the SCSI Monster," pp. 158-162
Always Technology Upgrade Installation Guide for the
IN-2000 Adapter -- 818/597-9595
CorelSCSI installation manual. Corel -- 800/873-4374
PowerBook 170 Screams, er, Screens
----------------------------------
A month or so back, I suddenly noticed on the nets all sorts of
reports from PowerBook 170 owners whose screens had just broken.
In every case, the person was complaining on the nets because the
screen replacement is expensive, and Apple claimed that the user
had abused the screen. In every case, the users swore up and down
(right and left too) that they hadn't damaged their screens in any
way or treated their PowerBooks badly.
I was struck by the number of postings (not that many, but clumped
together and from people who are generally respected on the nets
as having more upstairs than six inches of that pink insulation),
so I asked around a bit. I found out some information that is
certainly not official and I doubt anyone at Apple would ever
admit it was true. And, unfortunately, those of you with broken
screens are probably still out of luck and pocket.
It seems that the manufacturer of the 170's active matrix screens
allegedly may have (notice the clever journalistic tactic of not
actually accusing anyone of anything) etched a serial number into
the corner of the glass of certain 170 screens. Needless to say,
from a manufacturing standpoint, this is a major mistake, since
once the surface of the glass is compromised, the screen is no
longer perfect and is far more susceptible to mechanical stress.
Rumor has it that that company will no longer supply screens to
Apple, in part because they could never supply enough and possibly
in part because of this alleged idiocy that affects some small
number of PowerBook 170s. I haven't heard of any problems with
180s, and the passive matrix screens don't appear to be as
fragile.
Based on information from several sources, I see numerous ways to
look at this issue, the engineer, the Apple PR robot, and the
consumer. Sounds like a bad joke already, doesn't it?
The engineer would have to examine the hardware carefully and look
at the failure rate to determine if there was in fact a design
flaw, and perhaps there is one. However, remember that most
"design flaws" come from marketing decisions (Rule 1) and remember
too that all the world's a marketing scheme (Rule 2). When push
comes to shove and the screen breaks, we don't know why, but it
doesn't happen to many people, so a design review will probably
take more time than it's worth. So once again, this is a case of
an alleged design flaw that may or may not have been caused by an
alleged marketing decision.
The Apple PR robot would have to make the situation look good, or
at least not bad, for Apple, no matter what he or she might really
think (Rule 3). That person would say that the failure rate is too
minor to warrant any kind of recall or repair program, especially
since Apple doesn't make enough margin on machine to look into
every complaint shared by X number of people where X is greater
than one and less than some unspecified large number of angry
consumers, all frothing at the mouth. Actually, the PR robot
wouldn't say anything like that, since PR robots can only respond
to problems with "We can neither confirm nor deny such and such."
(Rule 4). Can you imagine asking a nice simple question, like "Oh,
did you take out the garbage this morning?" Sheesh.
The consumer would of course be mad as hell (Rule 5), having
purchased an expensive computer system that is obviously a piece
of junk and what kind of nerve does Apple have selling such
garbage anyway when they know full well (you can tell because of
that "neither confirm or deny" trash) that those screens would
break if you so much as looked at them wrong and I will damn well
tell all of my friends and the entire network about it and I'm
never going to buy anything from Apple again. Humph! What? I have
to use Windows then? (Rule 6) You drive a hard bargain, Mr.
Mephistopheles - damned if I do and damned if I don't. I suppose
that's the price to pay for being on the cutting edge - as long as
I'm bleeding, where do I sign for my new PowerBook 180c?
So that about sums it up. I see no path for complaint since so few
people have been affected, and Apple won't even admit that there's
a problem with the Malaysian mice after Liam Breck collected
hundreds of reports. That would be a relatively cheap fix, unlike
the active matrix screens, so I think we can rest assured that
nothing will happen.
In general, it's a good idea to minimize stresses on the screen
when opening and closing PowerBooks. That means primarily that you
should open and close the screen using two hands (or however many
you have) on the lower half of the screen. Opening or closing the
screen from one top corner is the worst from the stress level (and
we don't need our computers getting repetitive stress injuries
either!).
Oh, and there is a quiz. What was Rule 2? Discuss.
Information from:
Pythaeus
Reviews/21-Jun-93
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 14-Jun-93, Vol. 7, #24
Dayna SafeDeposit and SafeDeposit Server 1.2 -- pg. 47
OrangePC 486 -- pg. 47
Double-speed CD-ROM drives -- pg. 54
AppleCD 300
Magic CD-ROM Drive 3401
NEC MultiSpin 74
PLI CD-ROM MS
Procom Mac-CD-MX
* MacUser -- Jul-93
Adobe Photoshop 2.5 -- pg. 56
SpreadBase -- pg. 58
form*Z -- pg. 60
SuperATM -- pg. 62
Ascend -- pg. 63
FASTAT 2.0 -- pg. 69
Apple StyleWriter II -- pg. 73
DiskDoubler and StuffIt Deluxe -- pg. 76
The Madness of Roland -- pg. 87
Safe & Sound -- pg. 87
Color It! -- pg. 87
A-Train -- pg. 88
L-TV -- pg. 89
Large Hard Drives -- pg. 92
(too many to list)
Presentation Software -- pg. 116
CA-Cricket Presents 2.1
MORE 3.1
Persuasion 2.1
PowerPoint 3.0
Monochrome & Grey Scale Monitors -- pg. 130
(too many to list)
Group Schedulers -- pg. 154
(too many to list)
Learning Software -- pg. 199
The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
Webster's Electronic Dictionary & Thesaurus College Edition
Your Personal Trainer for the SAT
..
This text is wrapped as a setext. For more information send email
with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject: line to
. A file will be returned promptly.
For information on TidBITS: how to subscribe to our mailing list,
where to find back issues, how to search issues on the Internet's
WAIS, and other useful stuff, send email to: